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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • The last Windows I installed was Windows 10. I was trying to install onto a SATA SSD, while keeping my pre-existing Linux installation on the M.2 SSD intact. This took me an unreasonably long time and lots of failed attempts, and in the end, the only way I could find to make it work was to first physically remove the M.2, then install Windows, then add the M.2 back again. Which sucked a lot, because M.2s are really not optimized for easy or frequent installation and deinstallation.











  • waigl@lemmy.worldtoProgrammer Humor@programming.devUniversity Students
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    6 months ago

    Writing good comments is an art form, and beginner programmers often struggle with it. They know comments mostly from their text books, where the comments explain what is happening to someone who doesn’t yet know programming, and nobody has told them yet that that is not at all a useful commenting style outside of education. So that’s how they use them. It usually ends up making the code harder to read, not easier.

    Later on, programmers will need to learn a few rules about comments, like:

    • Assume that whoever reads your code knows the programming language, the platform and the problem domain at least in general terms. You are not writing a teaching aid, you are writing presumably useful software.
    • Don’t comment the obvious. (Aside from documentation comments for function/method/class signatures)
    • Don’t comment what a line is doing. Instead, write your code, especially names for variables, constants, classes, functions, methods and so on, so that they produce talking code that needs no comments. Reserve the “what” style comments for where that just isn’t possible.
    • Do comment the why. Tell the reader about your intentions and about big-picture issues. If an if-statement is hard to parse, write a corresponding if clause in plain English on top of it.
    • In some cases, comment the “why not”, to keep maintenance programmers from falling in the same trap you already found.

  • I wonder when, if ever, Warner Bros. Is going to learn that players are actively pushing back against corporate greed and live service games are already way past the limit of microtransactions that players deem acceptable.

    Some time after that actually happens.

    Yes, there are a lot of players in various social networks loudly complaining about the phenomenon (although I suspect many of those are not even in the target audience to begin with), and there are even some actively boycotting these games, but so long as there are enough of them left willing to play ball, and especially some with an exploitable addiction-prone personality that can be hooked on loot boxes and microtransactions until they spend more than they have, there just isn’t anything for these companies here to “learn”. Other than “hey, this is insanely profitable”.

    They may get insulted on Xitter for it, but who cares, everybody gets insulted on Shitter…



  • I have been sort of following Wayland’s development for over 10 years now. I have been using Wayland for over 2 years now. I have been reading and watching various lengthy arguments online for and against it. I still don’t feel like I actually know it even is, not beyond some handwavey superficialities. Definitely not to the extent and depth I could understand what X11 was and how to actually work with it, troubleshoot it when necessary and achieve something slightly unusual with it. I feel like, these days, you are either getting superficial marketing materials, ELI5 approaches that seem to be suited at best to pacify a nosy child without giving them anything to actually work with, or reference manuals full of unexplained jargon for people who already know how it works and just need to look up some details now and then…

    Maybe I’m getting old. I used to like Linux because I could actually understand what was going on…




  • Honestly, this should be a bigger discussion, and not limited to just games. If a software company sells a software license for perpetual use to someone, they should not be allowed to use copy protection mechanisms that prevent the licensee from using it in perpetuity.

    If there’s some other technical reason why the software won’t run any more after ten or twenty years, that’s another story. But if they just can’t be bothered to keep running the licensing servers, then they need to bloody well remove the stinking copy protection.



  • waigl@lemmy.worldtoComic Strips@lemmy.worldXXX
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    9 months ago

    Corporations holding residential real estate are a growing part of the problem, but still a small one. The vast majority of single famliy homes are still owned by either their residents or small time, non-incorporated landlords.

    Never mind increasing the supply of housing would drive down prices and remove pressure regardless of who owns the existing stock.


  • waigl@lemmy.worldtoComic Strips@lemmy.worldXXX
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    9 months ago

    Okay, this bullshit. It’s not shareholders who would be negatively affected by this, and it’s not shareholders who are actively working against doing something about the problem. Shareholders are just an easy acceptable target to point your fingers at, whether it makes sense or not.

    What needs to be done to tackle the homelessness problem (not the only thing, but probably the most important one) is to zone much, much more land inside or directly next to cities for affordable mid-rise multi-family homes. Guess who is opposed to that and has the power to do something about it? Existing property owners. Specifically owners of detached single family homes. Because doing that would negatively affect their property values. Personally, I think that shouldn’t matter, because what good is living in home that is worth absurd amounts of money on paper going to do you if society is falling apart because of it? But home owners are always massively concerned about their property values and will torpedo anything that might threaten it. Of course, pointing your fingers at home owners is much dicier than pointing them at shareholders, because even in a bubble like this one, you are bound to point at some people here who will feel personally attacked by that…

    “Shareholders”, on the other hand, aside from those that are also home owners at the same time, don’t really have much reason to care one way or another about effective projects to reduce homelessness.